Three family members jailed after 'flagrant' flouting of court order over Arborfield land

Three members of a family have been jailed for flouting an order banning them from keeping caravans and scrap on their land.

Leslie Tucker Dunn, 56, his wife Debbie, and his son, Leslie Jnr, 31, were given two months by a top judge to clear mobile homes, tyres and scrap from parts of their land in Arborfield Cross in April, last year.

Last Thursday, Judge Richard Seymour QC, sitting at the High Court, upheld a bid by Wokingham Borough Council to have the trio sent to prison for civil contempt of court, saying he had “no alternative” but to jail them for “flagrant” flouting of the court order.

The Dunns have been slapped with numerous enforcement notices for siting mobile homes, car scrap, tyres, recycling waste and laying hardcore without planning permission at The Copse, in Eversley Road, since 1988.

The family have been subject to nine planning enforcement notices over the past 25 years, with Leslie Snr and Leslie Jnr prosecuted for admitted breaches at Reading Crown Court in April, 2012.

The council applied to the High Court for an injunction banning caravans, sundry scrap and any new structures from parts of the land in April, last year, the judge said.

Judge Seymour granted the injunction, ordering the removal of all such items, the laying of topsoil and the planting of grass within eight weeks. He also banned anyone from living on the site, apart from a short list of specified residents.

The judge said 19 people were living on the site in rented caravans, in “flagrant” breach of the order, and that tyres, vehicles, containers, a skip, and various other items remained on the land.

He said the scrap metal had only been removed earlier this year and that top soil and re-seeding works are yet to be concluded, seven-and-a-half months beyond the deadline.

Leslie Snr claimed he should have been excluded from the injunction as he no longer owns any of the land and has no control over compliance in relation to it.

Judge Seymour also rebuffed submissions from the Dunns’ barrister, Alan Masters, that Leslie Jnr and Debbie had been unable to remove the caravans, because they are owned and leased out by a company, not by them.

Judge Seymour dismissed suggestions by the pair that problems with their contractors and the weather had stymied their attempts to clear and restore the site’s turf.

He said: “Leslie Dunn Jnr and his mother chose to not to comply. It is admitted there were serious breaches of my order.

“There is a long and most unhappy planning history on this site, in which the defendants seem consistently to have raised two fingers to the local authority.

“In contesting this application, they have now decided to include within that generous gesture this court.”

Each of the defendants were jailed for four months.

The Dunns were ordered pay the council’s legal costs, with an up front sum of £10,000 payable, while the council’s final legal bill is assessed.